Family gathering

Family gathering Order Description   Item number Title Type Value Due date* Return date** 1 Family Gathering Assignment 50% 21-Dec-2017 17-Jan-2018 2 Learning Stories Assignment 50% 21-Jan-2018 13-Feb-2018 * due date is the last date for assessment items to be received at the University ** applies only to assessment items submitted by the due date Assessment item 1 Family Gathering Value: 50% Due date: 21-Dec-2017 Return date: 17-Jan-2018 Length: Approx. 20-30 slides Submission method options EASTS (online) Task For this task, you need to organise and implement a "family gathering" with the children and families at your service (or other setting). How you approach this task is completely up to you. You can choose how many families you want to work with, and how you want to work with them. You might hold a workshop at the service and invite families to attend, or you might invite families to complete activities at home. You might "gather" families physically or virtually. It is up to you to decide what mathematical concepts you will focus on and what activities you will implement with the children and families. The activities should focus on everyday opportunities for learning about mathematics. Be creative, but keep in mind the needs, interests, and time constraints of the families with whom you are working. You will need to collect evidence which documents your family gathering activities - this may consist of photographs, drawings, work samples, letters, emails, screenshots, and any other form of evidence relevant to your gathering. This evidence will be utilised in your PowerPoint presentation, so make sure you have enough to clearly show what happened during your family gathering. NOTE: Please do not use videos as evidence in your presentation, as these will make your file too large to upload to EASTS. Once you have completed your activities with the families, prepare a PowerPoint presentation with approx. 20-30 slides about the family gathering. The key things you need to cover in your presentation are: •The context; •How you planned and organised your gathering; •Why you planned it the way you did; •Who was involved, when and how; •What actually happened during the gathering (including some form of documentation, e.g. photographs, drawings, short narratives/stories); •The impact of the gathering on the children and families; and •The impact this experience has had on your practice and the way you think about mathematics education. You will receive a Help with Assessment Item 1 resource during the session which will provide further guidance as to how to complete this task. NOTE: If you are not currently employed in an early childhood service, please contact your Subject Coordinator to discuss alternative settings for completing this assessment item. Rationale The aim of this assessment item is to work closely with a small group of families to get them noticing, exploring, and talking about mathematics with their children. It is also an opportunity for you to devise your own strategies for working with families to support young children’s numeracy development. On successful completion of this assessment item, students will: •be able to articulate the influence of individuals' beliefs and culture (including their own) upon attitudes towards mathematics; •have developed effective communication strategies (written, oral, visual, interactive) for exploring and discussing with families in their setting the opportunities for learning mathematics in everyday family contexts; •demonstrate the ability to identify games, children's literature and music which support children's mathematical development •be able to plan, implement and evaluate family gatherings/conversations about mathematics within their early childhood setting; and •be able to use effective communication strategies to mentor families in supporting their children's mathematical development. Marking criteria ASSESSMENT CRITERIA (50 marks) High Distinction (85-100%) Distinction (75-84%) Credit (65-74%) Pass (50-64%) Fail (0-49%) Knowledge of how to assist families notice, explore, and talk about mathematics with their children, demonstrated through planning a sequence of effective, appropriate and engaging activities (30 marks) Comprehensive description of the context, including information about the children and families, the setting, and how and why they were selected. Demonstrated ability to identify the potential for mathematics learning in everyday activities. A range of effective, appropriate and engaging activities have been implemented, and clear planning details have been provided. Presentation contains analysis which reflects a deep understanding of mathematical concepts and processes, including use of appropriate mathematical terminology. Knowledge of mathematical concepts and processes is applied to assist families notice, explore and talk about mathematics with their children. Discussion is supported with reference to Bishop’s activities, the subject readings, as well as additional readings sourced by the student. Detailed description of the context, including information about the children and families, the setting, and how and why they were selected. Demonstrated ability to identify the potential for mathematics learning in everyday activities. A range of effective, appropriate and engaging activities have been implemented, and clear planning details have been provided. Presentation reflects understanding of mathematical concepts and processes, including use of appropriate mathematical terminology. Knowledge of mathematical concepts and processes is applied to assist families notice, explore and talk about mathematics with their children. Discussion is supported with reference to Bishop's activities and the subject readings. Clear description of the context, including information about the children and families, the setting, and how and why they were selected. Demonstrated ability to identify the potential for mathematics learning in everyday activities. Effective, appropriate and engaging activities have been implemented, and planning details have been provided. Presentation reflects understanding of mathematical learning. Knowledge of mathematical learning is applied to assist families notice, explore and talk about mathematics with their children. Discussion is supported with reference to the subject readings. Limited description of the context, with only the basic information about the families and the setting given. Effective, appropriate and engaging activities have been implemented, and planning details have been provided. Presentation reflects understanding of mathematical learning. Knowledge of mathematical learning is applied to assist families notice, explore and talk about mathematics with their children. Insufficient contextual information is provided, and it is not clear who was involved or what the setting was. AND/OR Activities are inappropriate. AND/OR Planning details have not been provided. AND/OR Presentation does not reflect understanding of mathematical learning. AND/OR Knowledge of mathematical learning is not applied to assist families notice, explore and talk about mathematics with their children. Discussion of, and reflection upon, the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on the families and your own practice (15 marks) Presentation includes critical reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on the families. Strategies for seeking feedback from families have been included in the planning, and feedback from families is included in the presentation. Presentation includes critical reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on your own practice. Strategies for self-reflection have been included in the planning, and specific examples are included in the presentation. Discussion is supported with reference to the subject materials as well as additional readings sourced by the student. Presentation includes reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on the families. Feedback from families is included in the presentation. Presentation includes reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on your own practice. Specific examples of self-reflection are included in the presentation. Discussion is supported with reference to the subject materials. Presentation includes reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on the families. Feedback from families is included in the presentation. Presentation includes reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on your own practice. Discussion is supported with reference to the subject materials. Presentation includes reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on the families. Presentation includes reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on your own practice. Lack of reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on the families. AND/OR Lack of reflection upon the impact of the family gathering and associated activities on your own practice.   Development of a clear, detailed, and reflective PowerPoint presentation about the family gathering, which uses academic writing and APA-style referencing (5 marks) All required components of the presentation are addressed in detail. PowerPoint (or approved alternate presentation software) is skilfully used to prepare a presentation with clear structure, good use of headings and sub-headings, and a high level of readability. No errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. No errors in APA-style referencing, both in-text and in the reference list. All required components of the presentation are addressed in detail. PowerPoint (or approved alternate presentation software) is used to prepare a presentation with clear structure, good use of headings and sub-headings, and a high level of readability. Few errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Few errors in APA-style referencing, both in-text and in the reference list. All required components of the presentation are addressed in detail. PowerPoint (or approved alternate presentation software) is used to prepare a presentation with clear structure and use of headings. Consistent errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Consistent errors in APA-style referencing, both in-text and in the reference list. All required components of the presentation are addressed. PowerPoint (or approved alternate presentation software) is used to prepare a presentation with clear structure. Frequent errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Frequent errors in APA-style referencing, both in-text and in the reference list. All required components of the presentation are not addressed. AND/OR PowerPoint (or approved alternate presentation software) is not used. AND/OR Presentation has no clear structure. AND/OR Sources are not acknowledged. AND/OR Standard of writing is unacceptable.     Presentation This assignment must be presented as a PowerPoint (or equivalent) presentation, and submitted via the EASTS gateway. APA-style referencing must be used to acknowledge all sources cited in the assignment.   Prescribed Text Readings   eReserve and Website Readings     Week 1 13 November   Module 1: Introduction 1.1. Welcome to EMC101: Let's Count 1.2. What is Let's Count? 1.3. Study resources MacDonald (2015) Perry & MacDonald (2015)   Week 2 20 November Module 2: Young children's learning 2.1. Early childhood and learning 2.2. Play and investigation 2.3. The role of families in young children's learning Plan and organise Family Gathering Hunting, Mousley, & Perry (2012) Ch. 2 Clarke & Robbins (2004) Dockett (2011) Kliman, Mokros, & Parkes (2001) Perry (2009) Perry & Dockett (2005)   Week 3 27 November Module 3: Young children's mathematics learning 3.1. Learning mathematics in the early years 3.2. Attitudes, culture and language in children's mathematics learning Discussion: Memories of learning mathematics Discussion: Examples of Bishop's mathematical activities Discussion: Culture and language Plan and organise Family Gathering Census date 1 December Hunting, Mousley, & Perry (2012) Chs. 1 & 3 AAMT & ECA (2006) Ginsburg, Lee, & Boyd (2008) Perry & Dockett (2008)   Week 4 4 December   Module 4: Noticing and exploring everyday opportunities for mathematics learning 4.1. Examples of mathematics in young children's lives Discussion: Playground photograph activity 4.2. Games, children's literature and music Discussion: Games, children's literature and music Plan and organise Family Gathering Implement Family Gathering Activities   Hunting, Mousley, & Perry (2012) Ch. 5 MacDonald (2012) Neal (2007) Young-Loveridge (2004)   Week 5 11 December   Module 5: Helping families to help their young children learn mathematics 5.1. Using prior-to-school opportunities to inspire families 5.2. Ideas to help families, notice, explore and talk about mathematics Implement Family Gathering Activities Hunting, Mousley, & Perry (2012) Chs. 4 & 6, Appendix Carr (2001) Carrington & Feder (2013) Perry, Dockett, & Harley (2007) US Department of Education (2005)   Week 6 18 December Module 6: Conclusion 6.1. Celebrating mathematics Prepare Family Gathering presentation for submission 21 December Assessment Item 1 Due   The Smith Family (2015) Help with Assessment Item 1 Assessment Item 1 is a PowerPoint which shares the activities you have undertaken with families during your time in this subject. My expectation for the PowerPoint is that it will be a visual record of how you spent time exploring mathematics with your partner family/families. I expect to see some sort of documentation of the activities, which may have been produced by you or provided by the children and families themselves – photographs, drawings, short narratives/stories... anything is fine, and I value all forms of evidence equally! There should be two “layers” to your presentation – a record of “what happened” (the evidence), as well as your interpretation of what happened. I will be looking for you to identify the mathematical concepts that were being explored in the activities which have been documented (you will probably want to include a reference or two when doing this). I will also be looking for an explanation of the impact of the activities on both the families and yourself, as the educator – what feedback did you get from families? Were they surprised/excited/sceptical? Did you learn things about the child/children’s mathematical knowledge that you may otherwise not have known? Did you learn new things about the way children develop mathematical understandings and/or did your experience affirm your beliefs about this development? To sum up, the key things you need to cover in your presentation are: ? the context; ? how you planned and organised your gathering; ? why you planned it the way you did; ? who was involved, when and how; ? what actually happened during the gathering (including some form of documentation); ? the impact of the gathering on the children and families; and ? the impact this experience has had on your practice and the way you think about mathematics education. None of this is intended to be wordy – don’t feel that you have to have slide after slide of 10-point font with an academic essay about mathematics education! The idea is to tell me the story—both written and visual—of the time you have spent working with these children and families to notice, explore and talk about mathematics. Here is an example of what a slide might look like: I talked with Billy’s family about how setting the table is a good way of developing numeracy skills. Billy has been helping his dad to set the table every night. They count out how many forks they need, and decide where to put them on the table so that each person has one fork. By doing this activity with his dad, Billy is learning the concept of one-to-one correspondence, developing spatial awareness, and is practicing his counting. Billy’s dad was surprised to see how well Billy could do this task, and thinks that Billy will be able to count out the forks all by himself soon. SETTING THE TABLE In addition to this document, please make sure you read the following: ? The task description in the Subject Outline. I know this seems obvious... but I really cannot stress enough how important it is to read this really, really, really carefully! All too often I have seen students miss out on valuable marks simply because an aspect of the task was missing from their work. Trust me, this is a really devastating thing to see because it is so easily avoidable! And please, if there is anything in the task description you are unsure about, seek clarification. ? The detailed marking criteria. The detailed criteria are in your Subject Outline, and a copy is also in the Assessment Item 1 Resources Folder. Make sure you read across the columns (from FL to HD) for each criterion, looking at the variations at each level, as this will give you some seriously big hints about what you need to do well in the task. Here are a few “technical” matters: ? There is no set word count for this assignment – the length of your presentation will vary a great deal depending on the nature of your gathering. ? Further to this, there is no expected number of slides – again, the number of slides will depend on the approach taken. However, as a rough guide, the number of slides is usually around 20-30. ? Please do not reveal the names of any centres, children, carers, or families in your learning stories. Please ensure you always use a pseudonym, acronym, or initial to refer to these. ? Please include a cover slide with your details (just like you would with the cover sheet of any other assignment). ? Please include your reference list on the last slide of your presentation. ? Please do not write anything in the “comments/notes” box underneath the slide – I will only read what is on the actual slides ? To sum up: The most important things I am looking for in your presentation are that you have helped families and their children to notice, and make the most of, the mathematics in everyday life; that you understand and appreciate the mathematics that has been noticed; and that you can reflect on the impact these activities and conversations have had on families and also on yourself. Again, this doesn’t have to be lengthy or wordy – clever and appropriate documentation and evidence, succinct but insightful comments on the evidence, and selective use of readings to support your comments will make me very happy ? Have fun! This an example: I talked with Billy’s family about how setting the table is a good way of developing numeracy skills. Billy has been helping his dad to set the table every night. They count out how many forks they need, and decide where to put them on the table so that each person has one fork. By doing this activity with his dad, Billy is learning the concept of one-to-one correspondence, developing spatial awareness, and is practicing his counting. Billy’s dad was surprised to see how well Billy could do this task, and thinks that Billy will be able to count out the forks all by himself soon.